Letters and E-mails from Elder Seth Neifert - called to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Asuncion, Paraguay North Mission. For more information about what Elder Neifert believes and will be teaching, please visit www.Mormon.org

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Monday, December 3, 2012

Dear Family,

Thank you for all of the letters and prayers! I really am thankful for what a great blessing family and friends are!

This
week was a really good one. We had a Zone Conference in Asuncion where
Elder Zaballos came and talked about how important missionary work is
and gave us some ideas about how we can be better. The main message of
the conference was purify yourselves and get rid of distractions. And
so Elder Bredsgaurd and I made a really big list of things we will work
on getting rid of so that we will be focused and in tune with the
spirit.

We made some awesome contacts that I know the Lord helped us find. We had one lesson in particular where we met with a
family and we taught lesson one. The father was paying really good
attention and just seemed like he was hungry for more. At the end we
asked him to pray and ask God if Joseph Smith truly was a prophet of God... and he prayed and then the spirit just hit us like a ton of
bricks. He said that he received his answer and we explained about
the Holy Ghost and what significance this has for him and his family.
He didn't come to church yesterday, but we will visit him this week. We
also had 2 or 3 more situations just like that where the people were
just prepared and had enough faith and desire that you could see the
spirit working in them. I just feel really blessed to be a part of this
beautiful work. This week has really strengthened my faith in how the Lord directs and leads his servants.

We also have been working a lot with Raquel
and her family. It rained a ton on Thursday and we headed out to visit
her and other investigators out there. The streets were all under at
least 4 inches of water and got deeper and deeper the closer we got to Nuevo Asuncion. About a kilometer out the water was above the tires
and the driver wouldn't go any farther because he couldn't tell where the
road was. So everybody started to get off the bus in waist deep
water with all of their groceries and stuff - holding it above their
head. We took off our shoes and started trudging through the water
to get to Raquel's house. It was awesome and way funny because we would
be walking and all of the sudden you would step into a huge pot hole and
fall over. None of the houses had yards. All you could see was the
houses and the tops of gates. We borrowed some pink flip flops and
crocs from some members and got to Raquel's house. It looked like her
house was in the middle of a lake. We had an amazing lesson with Raquel's family and her sister about the word of wisdom and went over the
law of chastity again. The whole family said they would keep both
commandments and it has been incredible how quickly their faith and
testimonies have grown as they've kept commitments and really experimented with prayer and keeping commandments. The blessings of
living the gospel don't come without sacrifice though and it has been a
crazy week for their family. Raquel's husband said he wants to marry her
and learn more about the church. On Sunday Raquel didn't know if he's
really in marrying her because he loves her. And now her boyfriend is
mad at us for teaching his family about how important marriage is
in keeping the family together and happy. I feel like I am Doctor Phil. I am sure that Raquel will do what is best for her family. Her baptism is being postponed along with her 2 kids and sister.

I love you all and I hope that my letter gets to you in time for Christmas!

Love,

Elder Neifert

I wont have transfers until after Christmas and I think I will probably be staying in Yuqury.